Australian Women's Book Review: Online

Hecate's
Australian Women's Book Review

ISSN 1033-9434
Editor:  Barbara Brook
Contributing Assistant Editor:  Katie Hughes
Photomontage:  Set in Stone, Adele Flood

Volume 12, 2000

No Buena Vista

I Gave You All I Had by Zoe Valdez, Text Publishing, 238 pages

Reviewed by Adele Flood

In the novel, I Gave Them All I Had, Zoe Valdes opens her account of the life story of Cuca Martinez with a quotation from Guillermo Infante. We read "to remember is to open a Pandora's box of pain and smells and nocturnal music". In this novel indeed pain, smells, nocturnal music, love and a tumultuous journey of suffering, loss and misdirected devotion are remembered. We are introduced to the narrator but she is not the narrator, she is the corpse. We are given an early premonition that this narrative will not be an easy comfortable journey.

The fascination and disgust Cuca has with sex is echoed in this reader's view of the book. It is both fascinating and disturbing at the same time. The early scenes of rape and the apparent sodomising of Cuca's brother are graphic and are portrayed in gratuitous detail. There is a suspicion that they are there to shock the reader and to set the scene of a rampant sexual activity that is often portrayed as Latin and in particular Cuban. However it does set the scene for the indulgent and devoted love Cuca bestows upon the man of her dreams, Juan Perez. Predictably, he is not all he seems and as the story unfolds his true character is revealed.

Cuca is introduced to Havana life by two older women, the prostitutes La Mechunga and La Puchunguita. They provide Cuca with a home and protect her. They are comic figures, grotesque yet caring, and provide the voice of reason and sanity in difficult times. They become godparents to Cuca's daughter,Maria, the result of her attachment to Juan Perez.

We are given a picture of unfulfilled desire and an obsessive love that is unrequited. Cuca's life mirrors the general existence of the Cuban people: "the same people who five seconds before were weeping and languishing were now hell bent on fun and laughter”. Cuca goes from highs to lows until the point when one realises there are not going to be any more highs. The background is the descent of Cuba into the deprivation and constraints of the Communist regime. The party and its leaders are depicted as controlling and destructive as Cuca disappointedly points out; "the world we had failed to build because they had tied our hands and dulled our minds: the world they had snatched from us with their folly for power and greatness … . Humiliation was becoming the order of the day".

Maria, Cuca's daughter is the new generation and she embraces the doctrine, contributes to the cause, attends camp school and breaks away as Cuca notes, "my daughter slipped away through my fingers. She grew up straitjacketed inside her starched and ironed uniform". Cuca feels abandoned by the two people she loved in her life - Juan Perez and her daughter and we witness her journey into the isolated and solitary life of madness and wasted devotion.

Corruption, self-interested men, abandoned women and lost innocence all combine to leave the reader feeling there is little hope for either Cuca or Cuba. There is a wistfulness in the writing, a desire to return to better times and a longing for the Cuba that was. Excerpts of songs are scattered throughout the book, their lyrics reflect a dispossessed and displaced people.

Havana, will those days ever come back I ask
Havana to walk the Malecon in search of your moon
Havana to see the brightness of your beaches again
Havana to find your smiling streets again
Havana I may be far but did not forget
Havana nostalgic, I yearn for you.

I Gave You All I Had is a book about memory, about narratives and about love. It is an intense and disturbing novel in which the desires and ambitions of a country and a woman are interwoven into a captivating story. There is a clever use of multiple voices telling the story and a collapsing of time into disjointed segments of history. The reader is spoken to directly, asked questions and invited to consider events as they unfold. The narrator ends the story by turning to her only weapons, her photo album and a book of Cuban history. She speaks of fighting her monsters by revealing the stories of the past.

It is a strong political statement of oppression and domination and gives a very different view of Cuba than is apparent when visiting the country. When I visited Havana I was mesmerized by its beauty and there was an apparent desire of the people to regenerate the old city to its former glory. As I read this book images of the bright sea, the colour, the light and memories of exotic and beautiful women came back to me. I remembered the squares in which artists and musicians mingled with coffee drinkers in small cafes. Small bands of singers and guitarists stopped to play and sing for us as we sat taking in the beauty beneath old leafy trees with the Spanish Cathedral casting its shadow.

So much of one's life memories are tied to landscape and place. It is good to read a novel that reveals much about memory in terms of a narrative of place and time, and that reveals an alternate view to one's own experiences of that place. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in how women in particular live their lives carrying a sense of the past and future in their stories. The spirit inside Cuca speaks to us and Zoe Valdez tells us it is the spirits who tell superior stories because of their nostalgia and their pain and their helplessness.

I have forgotten all those things
in the world that
make pleasure short
and sorrow long

This is a superior story, it is captivating and exuberant. It reveals much about the arrogance of power and of the lives of those who are the faceless victims of that arrogance. Cuca indeed gave them all she had, and she continues to wait for some promise of pleasure and a sense of future that goes beyond "the faded violet in yesterday's book of memories".

Adele Flood is a Lecturer in Arts Education at RMIT University, Melbourne. She is currently undertaking research into the place of narrative and memory in the construction of artistic identity.

Hecate's Australian Women's Book Review

ISSN 1033-9434		Editor: Barbara Brook Contributing Assistant Editor: Katie Hughes *Photomontage: Set in Stone, Adele Flood*
Volume 12, 2000

No Buena Vista I Gave You All I Had by Zoe Valdez, Text Publishing, 238 pages Reviewed by Adele Flood In the novel, I Gave Them All I Had, Zoe Valdes opens her account of the life story of Cuca Martinez with a quotation from Guillermo Infante. We read "to remember is to open a Pandora's box of pain and smells and nocturnal music". In this novel indeed pain, smells, nocturnal music, love and a tumultuous journey of suffering, loss and misdirected devotion are remembered. We are introduced to the narrator but she is not the narrator, she is the corpse. We are given an early premonition that this narrative will not be an easy comfortable journey. The fascination and disgust Cuca has with sex is echoed in this reader's view of the book. It is both fascinating and disturbing at the same time. The early scenes of rape and the apparent sodomising of Cuca's brother are graphic and are portrayed in gratuitous detail. There is a suspicion that they are there to shock the reader and to set the scene of a rampant sexual activity that is often portrayed as Latin and in particular Cuban. However it does set the scene for the indulgent and devoted love Cuca bestows upon the man of her dreams, Juan Perez. Predictably, he is not all he seems and as the story unfolds his true character is revealed. Cuca is introduced to Havana life by two older women, the prostitutes La Mechunga and La Puchunguita. They provide Cuca with a home and protect her. They are comic figures, grotesque yet caring, and provide the voice of reason and sanity in difficult times. They become godparents to Cuca's daughter,Maria, the result of her attachment to Juan Perez. We are given a picture of unfulfilled desire and an obsessive love that is unrequited. Cuca's life mirrors the general existence of the Cuban people: "the same people who five seconds before were weeping and languishing were now hell bent on fun and laughter”. Cuca goes from highs to lows until the point when one realises there are not going to be any more highs. The background is the descent of Cuba into the deprivation and constraints of the Communist regime. The party and its leaders are depicted as controlling and destructive as Cuca disappointedly points out; "the world we had failed to build because they had tied our hands and dulled our minds: the world they had snatched from us with their folly for power and greatness … . Humiliation was becoming the order of the day". Maria, Cuca's daughter is the new generation and she embraces the doctrine, contributes to the cause, attends camp school and breaks away as Cuca notes, "my daughter slipped away through my fingers. She grew up straitjacketed inside her starched and ironed uniform". Cuca feels abandoned by the two people she loved in her life - Juan Perez and her daughter and we witness her journey into the isolated and solitary life of madness and wasted devotion. Corruption, self-interested men, abandoned women and lost innocence all combine to leave the reader feeling there is little hope for either Cuca or Cuba. There is a wistfulness in the writing, a desire to return to better times and a longing for the Cuba that was. Excerpts of songs are scattered throughout the book, their lyrics reflect a dispossessed and displaced people. Havana, will those days ever come back I ask Havana to walk the Malecon in search of your moon Havana to see the brightness of your beaches again Havana to find your smiling streets again Havana I may be far but did not forget Havana nostalgic, I yearn for you. I Gave You All I Had is a book about memory, about narratives and about love. It is an intense and disturbing novel in which the desires and ambitions of a country and a woman are interwoven into a captivating story. There is a clever use of multiple voices telling the story and a collapsing of time into disjointed segments of history. The reader is spoken to directly, asked questions and invited to consider events as they unfold. The narrator ends the story by turning to her only weapons, her photo album and a book of Cuban history. She speaks of fighting her monsters by revealing the stories of the past. It is a strong political statement of oppression and domination and gives a very different view of Cuba than is apparent when visiting the country. When I visited Havana I was mesmerized by its beauty and there was an apparent desire of the people to regenerate the old city to its former glory. As I read this book images of the bright sea, the colour, the light and memories of exotic and beautiful women came back to me. I remembered the squares in which artists and musicians mingled with coffee drinkers in small cafes. Small bands of singers and guitarists stopped to play and sing for us as we sat taking in the beauty beneath old leafy trees with the Spanish Cathedral casting its shadow. So much of one's life memories are tied to landscape and place. It is good to read a novel that reveals much about memory in terms of a narrative of place and time, and that reveals an alternate view to one's own experiences of that place. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in how women in particular live their lives carrying a sense of the past and future in their stories. The spirit inside Cuca speaks to us and Zoe Valdez tells us it is the spirits who tell superior stories because of their nostalgia and their pain and their helplessness. I have forgotten all those things in the world that make pleasure short and sorrow long This is a superior story, it is captivating and exuberant. It reveals much about the arrogance of power and of the lives of those who are the faceless victims of that arrogance. Cuca indeed gave them all she had, and she continues to wait for some promise of pleasure and a sense of future that goes beyond "the faded violet in yesterday's book of memories". Adele Flood is a Lecturer in Arts Education at RMIT University, Melbourne. She is currently undertaking research into the place of narrative and memory in the construction of artistic identity.